Ron Nehring's lifelong political odyssey has taken him to some of the most turbulent outposts on the planet – Iraq, Bosnia, the West Bank, Haiti, the Grossmont Union High School District and now the California Republican Party.

LAURA EMBRY / Union-Tribune

As chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County, Ron Nehring has bolstered the GOP presence, saying
64 percent of the county's elective offices are held by Republicans.

In nearly six years as chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County, Nehring has earned a statewide reputation in Republican circles for turning an ineffectual organization wracked by ideological infighting into a formidable political force.

On Sunday, he is expected to be elected chairman of the California Republican Party by acclamation at its state convention in Sacramento.

It's a good move, said Nehring's partisan rival, Jess Durfee, chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party.

“I think he's done a very good job,” Durfee said. “Raising money is something he's proven himself to be very good at. I think he's also been an effective strategist as well, and we're working very hard to catch up in that regard.”

A longtime activist in various conservative causes, Nehring, 36, made purging the county party's bent toward ideological fratricide a top priority and largely succeeded.

“Your typical meeting would consist of the first half arguing about who we throw out of the party and the second half arguing about why we couldn't get to a majority,” he said.

Nehring put a stop to the practice common in many political groups – including the state Republican Party – of lashing out at assorted bogeymen by passing resolutions that provoke bitter arguments but have no practical consequences.

“In five and a half years we've passed no resolutions at our county party,” Nehring said. “Go to any Democratic meeting. They're always passing some resolution on something and they're ineffective because they're not moving the ball. And so we have to focus on those things which move the ball and refrain from doing those things which divide us unnecessarily or turn us into a debating society.”

California Republican Party delegates have often been a quarrelsome lot, at times bordering on the dysfunctional. Much of the backbiting and turf wars have subsided in the past four years as the party has become a more professional operation under its outgoing chairman, Duf Sundheim.

Nehring said more needs to be done, especially in terms of building an ongoing campaign organization to raise money, support candidates at every level, register voters and make sure they vote.

“In a state with 1.3 million more Democrats than Republicans, it is imperative that we build a vastly superior organization compared to our opponents,” he said.

During the past six years, the political pipeline in San Diego County has become well-stocked with Republicans as Nehring has methodically recruited candidates for everything from city councils and school boards down to hospital districts and water boards. He said 64 percent of the county's elective offices – partisan and nonpartisan – are held by Republicans.

“It really is a program of systematically going through every elected office, encouraging Republicans to run, endorsing those candidates, letting our members know who those candidates are through door-hangers and downloadable voter guides,” he said.

Nehring's career has not been without controversy, in part because of his close ties to influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, whose name has surfaced in the investigations of jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt and combative, Norquist once reputedly said his goal was to “shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Nehring worked on the staff of Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform as a senior consultant until recently, when he formed his own consulting firm, Nehring Strategies, which counts the Norquist group as one of its clients.

He was appointed to a vacancy on the Grossmont Union High School District board in 2004 when it was embroiled in a nasty battle with the district's teachers union and critics accused the conservative majority of seeking to force a religious agenda on the schools – a charge Nehring and others disputed.

Nehring did not run for a full term in the 2006 elections. He said he expected to become state party chairman and did not believe he would have the time to do both jobs effectively.

In a little known sidelight, Nehring makes periodic trips overseas to train local people in setting up the institutions of democracy. He trav els under the auspices of the International Republican Institute, one of four nonprofit organizations financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, which was created by Congress in 1983 to support emerging democracies.

He made a harrowing trip to Iraq in November and has also instructed officials in Bosnia, Haiti and the West Bank.

“When I was in Iraq, I specifically talked to a number of folks about how to set up their government offices – how do you communicate with your members, how do you handle scheduling, how do you handle a legislative agenda,” he explained. “These are basic mechanical functions which are brand-new to folks who haven't had a functioning legislature in 30 years.”

The day before he was to return from Iraq, he was stranded for several days when the Iraqi government ordered a lockdown after three car bombs went off in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.

In an e-mail to conservative blogger Steve Frank at the time, Nehring wrote: “Since arriving here last Sunday, I've had my luggage lost, car bombs detonated outside of the building where I was lecturing, mortar fire within easy earshot, flights canceled and now uncertainty about when I will have the opportunity to return to California.”

Nehring has been a diehard Republican almost since the day he was born to vehemently anti-communist German immigrant parents in 1970 in Islip, N.Y.

“I remember watching the debate between Reagan and Carter, 10 years old in 1980, and identifying with Reagan and wanting Reagan to win,” he recalled.

During his freshman year at Stony Brook University in New York, he was elected president of the campus Young Republicans on a vote of 8-7.

While in college, he attended seminars in Washington sponsored by the Leadership Institute, which calls itself “the premier training ground for tomorrow's conservative leaders.”

After working in Washington for several think tanks that promote free-market economic policies, Nehring received a late-night phone call in 1996 from then-Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian asking him to come to San Diego to work on campaigns for the county Republican Party.

He was hooked, and in 2000, he moved to San Diego for good.

“I was absolutely drawn here by the quality of life,” he said, “and I got tired of Washington winters.”